


Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam

by nervoussis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:28:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27749020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervoussis/pseuds/nervoussis
Summary: You could say it ended with a bang. That’s not how it usually goes, the slide into madness comes first and then. The whimper. The silence at the end of a song that has been played out of tune.The chord is struck a couple of times before silence falls hot and heavy like a ladle of tomato soup over the skin of the earth. Steve feels each vibration down to the very atoms that fuse and mold together, feels the push toward the light at the end of the tunnel, but.It doesn’t get bad until the car hits the tree.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 104





	Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trashycatarcade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashycatarcade/gifts).



> I dunno, I wrote this in an hour :/

You could say it ended with a bang. That’s not how it usually goes, the slide into madness comes first and then. The whimper. The silence at the end of a song that has been played out of tune. **  
**

The chord is struck a couple of times before silence falls hot and heavy like a ladle of tomato soup over the skin of the earth. Steve feels each vibration down to the very atoms that fuse and mold together, feels the push toward the light at the end of the tunnel, but. 

It doesn’t get bad until the car hits the tree.

They said it looked like a pretzel, bent around the oak trunk. One of those that you save five bucks for at the end of your family trip to the mall or something. A treat. The kind that comes with warm cheese? Steve’s mind is fuzzy toward that last part. **  
**

It began with a whimper. Six months before that. Yes. A slide into the back palette that tasted of cheap beer and remorse. it settled on Steve’s shoulders, silky and smooth like the wings of a bird. Almost weightless, unnoticeable as he worked his 9-5 and then. Guilt. 

They couldn’t save everyone, and. 

Yeah. 

Steve felt like the curtain was falling on the third act. The crowd was throwing tomatoes, every time he looked into El’s face, and. 

He learned later, after, that the paramedics had expected Steve’s head to be smashed open when they first got the call-- _yeah, looks like the Harrington kid tried to veer off into the quarry. What? No, hit a tree. Seems like. Probably dead, way it’s bent around the tree like some kinda_ \-- from Matthew Park. They said he threw up once he got closer to the wreckage.

They had gotten carried away, Imagining Steve’s head as a melon on the Fourth of July, run over by a carnie truck on its way out of town. Hilariously Steve came away in one piece. _That_ they hadn’t expected and Steve didn’t want it, because. Bob and Barbara and. Hopper.

Steve can’t seem to die.

\--

Hospital beds are his least favorite place in the world to resurface. And that includes elevators to hell and secret Russian torture chambers. Especially when he didn’t expect to wake up ever again, so. Steve blinks his eyes open. **  
**

It’s painful, the peel of his lids separating from one another. He sees fluorescent lights, blue like waves. Like the ocean, like--

Someone shifts in the seat next to him. To the left, he thinks, somewhere near a roll out cot that still has the blankets stretched tight over its face. Billy’s asleep in a worn leather back chair. Neck bent like a pretzel around the curve of his shoulder, and. Figures. He doesn’t sleep in the bed if Steve isn’t there. Hasn’t since he packed his bags three weeks ago and left Steve calling after him into the rain. He looks like shit. 

“You look like shit,” Steve tries. His voice ends on a whimper, because. Steve hadn’t expected to see him again. 

And Billy sits up. Risen from the dead when called upon from on high. Looks around the room like he does when he was really conked out, and. Zero’s in on Steve. On the I.V in one arm and a sling around the other. Steve thinks he feels a neck brace, or like. A Cone, or something, nestled against the ridges of his collarbones. The kind dogs wear so they won’t lick their wounds. Steve isn’t a dog, though. 

Billy doesn’t stop looking at him. He’s not going to cry, Steve doesn’t think, but. “Why would you try to leave without saying goodbye.” A whimper.

Steve wishes he were dead. Or _gone,_ or. Something. So he rips the I.V. from his arm and tries to stand, escape, before Billy can punch his lights out. The second his feet hit the floor Billy’s on him, rough hands shoving him back onto the soiled bed sheets. 

“You’re selfish, you know that? So fuckin’ selfish. Poor little rich boy can’t stomach his half of the shit sandwich. You're not the only one who hurts, asshole. You were just gonna fucking leave without saying goodbye? After all we’ve been through?” Billy’s fingers tighten possessively around Steve’s shoulders. Shake him, firm but gentle because Steve could crack and shatter, and. 

He might. Billy’s crying. And it settles like a stiff quit against open wounds, the sounds he’s making. The sharp _in-out-in_ of his breathing when Billy’s fingers move to touch Steve’s eyebrows, his nose, his forehead. To memorize the hills and valleys, it seems. Panicked. 

Steve can’t meet the fluorescent blue of his eyes. He finches back when thick fingers brush against something jagged and tender, a fleshy strip on the back of his neck.

“Stop.” 

Billy drops his hands. Steps back until there are oceans between them, squares of hideous linoleum flooring the color of sand. “We had a deal.”

“Bills--”

“We stick it out. For the kids, we. Get help and shit.”

“‘S heavy.” Steve mumbles. Because it is, it’s. Heavy as a mac truck in his chest. 

Billy scoffs. _Snorts_ like it’s funny. Or ridiculous or. Infuriating. “Let me help you.”

“You can’t.”

“Let me help you carry it, baby, please.” Billy squats, knees stooping until his fingers guide Steve’s eyes to his own. H’s still crying. It hurts. “I can carry it. All of it, I can--”

“You left.”

Billy groans because Steve’s being _difficult_ or something. “You pushed me away.”

Steve struggles gently, shuffles around until Billy drops his hands again. All that bullshit Murray said that night when the bottom fell out. When Steve heard a knock at his door and Billy pulled him forward by his fucking teeth, into a kiss as warm as the sun. 

Shared trauma. Eats people alive. 

Steve shakes his head. That hurts too. “Didn’t mean it.”

There’s shuffling. Billy crossing his arms in the space between them. “That night when you threw the hairbrush at the mirror and told me to leave--”

“Billy--”

“Because you thought he was back, that night when you told me you didn’t love me anymore--”

Steve’s crying now. “I didn’t--”

“Mean it. Yeah.” Billy sighs. Exhales, through his nose and it blows around the room until everything is knocked off the walls. Until Steve has nothing to hide behind. When Billy speaks again his voice is soft. Summer rain against a slated roof. 

“Tell me to go and I will,” He says. Like it’s easy. Simple. 

Steve can’t look at him, can’t. Make the switch. Billy’s shuffling around again until Steve’s face is sandwiched between his palms, until blue meets brown like color bleeding from a canvas. Until everything is saturated in muddy brown. 

“Tell me to leave.” Billy says again. “But if you ask me to stay I’ll never leave you again, Stevie. Never.”

His fingers pat away tears. Steve’s crying harder, now, shuddering with it. Bones cracking and breaking under the weight of things they carry. He doesn’t know what to say. The words come and go, slip in and out of frame, until Billy’s climbing onto the bed with him. 

Arranging Steve. Pulling the covers up around them. A nurse walks by and asks Billy to _please get off the bed._ She threatens to kick him out when Billy flips her the bird because. Billy isn’t afraid.

He’s never afraid, not of anything. Steve settles in against him and the weight feels a little less heavy.


End file.
